Insights from the Backbase and Synpulse partnership.
This is the fifth article in a series of five, where we look at the third of the three valuable lessons learned from our real-life experience with helping a client set up an engagement banking platform.
Takeaway 3: It’s never too early to build up your own skills
As our final takeaway, it's crucial to remember that it's never too early to build up the skills of your employees.
One of the challenges a bank faces is attracting or retaining talent – especially talent with specific technical skill sets required to build and maintain a new digital platform. As banks are competing with technology firms and fintechs, being and remaining an attractive employer is key.
The first step is to empower employees to gain new technology skills and source specific expertise for your digital transformation. The skills needed on the technical side are focused on open and mobile technologies, and specifically include:
- API design and development (e.g., OpenAPI, Java Spring Boot)
- Web and mobile development (e.g., Angular for Web, Swift and Kotlin for iOS and Android, and added certification training from your digital banking vendor; in our case, Backbase certifications)
- Identify and access management (IAM) and mobile security expertise
In addition, you will need:
- Scrum masters or more general team leaders that motivate and coach your teams and understand the delivery well enough to remove impediments
- BAs that understand how to launch a digital proposition and digital products
- UX and UI designers
- Tech leads with end-to-end integration expertise (e.g., for integrating additional fintechs or third parties and translating between technical and business requirements)
Resourcing for a digital transformation programme needs to be planned well ahead. Commitment to a substantial and early investment in skill build-up is an integral part of the programme itself. For Backbase engagement banking programmes, we recommend upskilling a part of the existing digital banking team at the beginning of the programme and integrating these new teams with the existing expert teams at Backbase and external suppliers like Synpulse. The earlier you invest in these skills, the higher the return on your investment will be and the quicker you will be able to launch your new platform.
Digital banking will be the dominant channel for your clients going forward
Banks, which have launched on the Backbase engagement banking platform, have improved their KPIs significantly, with 90% lower channel maintenance costs, 33% lower IT costs for new app builds, and 60% faster time to market.
The digital bank is the bank of the future. When planning or running such a programme, our recommendation is to focus on a plan beyond delivery, establish clear ways of working between all the teams involved, and attract and build up specific platform skills early.
If you’re interested in finding out more and learning how this approach can benefit the digital transformation of your bank, feel free to contact us.
